In many industrial manufacturing processes, mechanical fasteners, such as rivets, screws, bolts and similar are used for joining or fixing two or more objects together. The installation of such mechanical fasteners is often automated by machines or robots that can install mechanical fasteners much quicker and with a higher precision than a human being. For such automated systems it is necessary to feed the mechanical fasteners quickly and reliable to the actual installation mechanisms. This can be done by hand, whereas in most instances it is preferred to use appropriate automated feeding mechanisms. Automated installation processes for mechanical fasteners therefore often require that the fastener to be installed is picked up from a first position, such as from a feeding mechanism or from a supply magazine or similar, and is moved to another location for further processing or installation. Therefore, such gripping devices should not only be reliable and accurate, but it is often desired that the mechanical fasteners are provided in a certain orientation.
From prior art document DE 20 2008 014 886 U1 a robot effector is known for installing mechanical fasteners, namely in particular rivets. The robot effector is provided with a frame that is attached to the hand of an industrial robot. On the frame an installation mechanism is arranged that can be provided with a supply magazine for different mechanical fasteners.
In view of the above, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved gripping device for mechanical fasteners that offers a secure, reliable and precise gripping of such mechanical fasteners and which preferably also offers additional flexibility in the orientation and processing of a gripped mechanical fastener. It is a further object of the invention to provide such a gripping device in connection with a robot effector for installing mechanical fasteners, to reliably and precisely grip and move mechanical fasteners from one processing station of the effector to another.
These and other objects which become apparent when reading the following description are solved by a gripping device as discussed.